Words
by Nolly-the-Lolly
Summary: Sequel to The New Girl. You may have to read it if you want to understand the OC. They had been together, in secret, for seven months, but his world is turned upside down when she gets injured in action. CallenxOC, Densi, Neric, and the rest. Most likely rated T as the story progresses.
1. Chapter 1

**Smile.**

**Chapter 1.**

_Authors' Note- So, I've decided to write a sequel to my first story **The New Girl,** which I suggest you read before reading this one, or else you'll be completely lost during the story. I hope you enjoy this story as much as you guys did the last time. Thanks for reading!_

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**Callen.**

Seven months. We've lasted seven months. Seven months together. Seven months without anyone else finding out about us, with the exception of the all-knowing Henrietta Lange, and Sam, who coaxed it out of me on a stakeout about five months ago. Seven months spent blissfully happy in each others' company. Every moment we've had free in these past months have been spent together. Every night that we weren't at work was spent at either my place or hers. At work, every glance, every smile, every laugh, was stolen in secret. The secret was what was killing me over the past few months, my desire to scream it out in Ops one morning was the thing that consumed me since we started dating.

Until she got shot.

The moment the bullet hit her chest, all those months of secret-keeping went out the window. No more stolen glances, no more furtive meetings, no more dodging calls or texts from The Wonder Twins, Nate, or Kensi and Deeks. No more deception. No more secrets.

The paramedics didn't leave anyone in the ambulance with her. Not even Nate. The ambulance pulled away, sirens blaring, without me inside it.

"Control yourself, G." Sam says to me, stopping my car from pulling away from the curb. "She's going to be fine."

"What if she's not?" I reply angrily, my voice breaking. "What happens then?" I say, staring at him. "I'm going to the hospital. Don't try to stop me."

I most likely break every driving law trying to get to the hospital. Even then, it takes me fifteen minutes. Freaking' LA traffic. I leave the car parked haphazardly in the parking lot, and race into the hospital.

"I need to get information on a patient who just arrived. Ava-Joy Connors." I tell the nurse at the reception desk, slightly out of breath, and flashing my ID.

"Yes, of course." She replies, quickly tapping keys on her computer. "She just went into surgery. Doctor Yang is the man you should talk to. He's in OR One. I'll take you there."

"Thank you." I say politely, fidgeting and urging to make my way to the OR.

"You can sit here and wait." The nurse says, pointing to a chair. "Dr. Yang will be out in a minute."

That minute felt like a lifetime.

"Agent Callen?" A man says, approaching me.

Surveying him quickly, I extend my hand shakily and reply, "Dr. Yang?"

"Yes. Please sit."

"How is she?" I ask quietly, sitting down.

"Well, I'm afraid it's not good. The bullet nicked her aorta, and then ricoched off her ribcage and collapsed her lung. She lost a lot of blood. It'll be hours before she's out of surgery. And even then, she may not make it." He answers politely and quietly.

I can't manage a single word. A lump the size of Texas has formed in my throat, and it seems like the Pacific Ocean is about to pour out of my eyes.

A nurse comes up behind Dr. Yang and says, "Doctor, you're needed."

"Thank you, Helen." He replies. "Why don't I leave you here to process this. Don't give up hope, Agent Callen."

I stare at the ground and don't move for what seems like an hour. I don't even look up when Nate, Kensi and Deeks come running around the corner.

"Callen." Kensi says, taking a seat beside me. "How-how is she?" She continues, fighting tears.

"I-It's not good Kens." I say unsteadily. "They don't think she's going to make it."

That comment reduces everyone to silence, and no-one speaks for the next few hours.

At 10pm, Kensi and Deeks are asleep in each others arms on the couch across from me.

Sam arrived three hours ago, and left a half hour ago to go home to Michelle, Zack and Zoe.

Nell and Eric can't leave Ops until midnight, but The Wonder Twins have a constant presence on our cellphones.

So, it's just Nate and I, left fidgeting in our seats, across the room from each other.

My jaw stays clenched for hours, unable to relax. I feel Nate's eyes reading my body language, but I couldn't care less right now.

It's Nate who breaks the silence, at 10:13pm.

"She's a fighter, Callen. She's going to make it."

It takes me a minute to reply. "Seven hours in surgery. Seven hours since she was shot. If she's not out by now, she's not going to pull through."

"You have to keep believing that she will." He insists.

Stirring from the couch across from us refocuses my attention. Deeks' arm is lazily slung around Kensi, who has laid her head down on her partners' chest. They, entwined in a mass of arms and legs, make me hope that AJ will get out of this alive. Because I can't live without her.

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**I have this up a little sooner than I expected. I hoped you enjoyed it. Please drop a review on the way out!**


	2. Chapter 2

**Chapter 2.**

_Author's Note- Sorry for being so late with this instalment. I've been kind of wrapped up in thinking of a new Once Upon a Time fic, which I could use some help in. Message me with any questions or tips and leave a review. Enjoy!_

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**Callen.**

"Give it to me!" She shouted as we both wrestled for control.

"My house, my rules, my remote." I reply, holding the object of her attention just out of her reach.

"G, come on! Pretty please?" She says, innocently batting her eyelashes in an attempt to win me over.

"Well...in that case..." I say, leaning into her, "no." I finish, leaping off the couch and sprinting towards the bedroom, leaving her stunned form leaning against the armrest of the grey sofa. "If you want it, come and get it." I say, waving the remote control around the corner of the living room wall.

"Come on! Can't we just compromise?" She shouts after me.

"Compromise?" I say, interested. "What did you have in mind?"

"Oh, you know, something that wouldn't require the TV." She replies demurely. "Actually, something that would require very little of anything." She finishes, raising a perfectly arched eyebrow.

"I don't think I know what you mean." I say coyly.

She smiles brilliantly and at that remark, she disappears into the living room, wielding the remote in her left hand.

* * *

Well, that flashback didn't make me feel any better. It's been almost seven and a half hours since she was shot. An hour since I last got an update on her condition, which means that I should be due another one any second now. Except, seconds don't exist when she's not here. Only hours, and days, and weeks, and lifetimes. I stay completely still in my chair, my face expressionless. Hopefully. I don't even stir when Nate's phone rings, followed by a swift and professional 'hello'. Either Hetty, or someone else above his pay grade. He leaves for a few seconds, judging by the clock, but again, time is slowed, sluggish.

"Callen." An impish voice whispers, a voice belonging to Nell Jones. "Is there any news?"

It takes me a few minutes to swallow the lump in my throat and answer her question, and all I can manage is a simple 'no'.

Pixie- the name AJ coined for her when she first joined NCIS- decides to perch on a seat beside mine, as if trying to offer me comfort in a way that isn't obvious, because she knows that I don't want it.

"Hetty told me to give you this." Pixie murmurs, handing me a small, pristine white envelope, with the name G. Callen written across the front of it, in Hetty's elaborate calligraphy. I stare at the paper in my hands for a few moments, unable to bring myself to open it. But, a lifetime later, I do. Albeit, I do so slowly.

_The Only Exception._

Is all it says on the ivory parchment. Three words, and they almost reduce me to a puddle of tears.

* * *

We had been dating for three months, and I had just gotten back from a two-week long Covert Op in Russia. We hadn't spoken in the two weeks that I was away, and I was so eager to hear her voice that I didn't even bother to go to my house to change clothes or get some sleep, which eluded me on the plane ride home. I pulled up to her house in a taxi, because Sam was in Cancun on a diving trip with some old SEAL buddies, and my car had been undergoing extensive repairs in the NCIS garage after a fire-fight broke out during our last case. It was a hot summer night, so her front windows were open just enough to let some fresh air into the small house.

As I approached, I heard a guitar playing faintly. Rhythmic strumming, followed by a small voice every now and then.

I stopped at the front door, and I poised my hand to knock, but the sound of the guitar and the singing stops me in my tracks.

"Maybe I know, somewhere,  
Deep in my soul,  
That love never lasts,  
And we've got to find other ways  
To make it alone  
Or keep a straight face,  
And I've always lived like this  
Keeping a comfortable, distance  
And up until now  
I had sworn to myself that I'm content  
With loneliness,  
Because none of it was ever worth the risk, well,

You, are, the only exception...  
You, are, the only exception...  
You, are, the only exception...  
You, are, the only exception."

The voice suddenly stopped. I looked up and realised the porch light was on, so she could see me standing there, listening intently.

The door in front of me swung open, revealing her stunning silhouette, shadowed against the bright light of the room behind her.

"I didn't know you played guitar." I say, raising an eyebrow.

A wide smile spread across her face, before she leapt up into my waiting arms.

* * *

"Lucy. Lucy. Luce, calm down. I know, I know I didn't call." Nate says, quietly returning to his seat, his voice dissolving the memory. From across the room, and through a cellphone, I can hear the middle Connors sister screaming through the phone at her older sister's partner.

"Why the hell didn't you call?!" I hear Lucy shout into Nate's ear. "It's not like I'm unreachable, I'm only in DC!"

"Yes, Lucy. I know, I should have called." Nate sighs in response.

"I've just landed. I'll be at the hospital in ten. Call me if anything happens." She concludes.

"I wi-" Nate begins, only stopping to realise that Lucy had hung up.

He sits back in his chair, and no more than ten minutes later, Lucy comes rushing in the door, followed by a calm Dr. Yang.

"Doctor." Nate says, leaping off his chair. "How is she?"

"She's out of surgery. She will be a while recovering, and she's not out of the woods yet, but were hopeful. Everything went well during the operation, so there should be no complications." He pauses, allowing everyone to let a rush of breath out of their lungs. "We're moving her to the ICU in ten minutes. She'll be out of it for a day or two at least, but you are more than welcome to stay with her."

Dr Yang nods, and leaves the room. Kensi throws her arms lazily over Deeks, Eric wraps his arm over Nell's minuscule shoulders, and Lucy sheds a tear as she hugs Nate, who returns the favour.

The next ten minutes go by as slowly as ever, but when we are let into the ICU, I can barely look at her intubated form without a lump forming in my throat. Seven hours I had kept the tears in, but when I see her for the first time since she was shot, I cannot hold them in any more.

And I just let them fall.

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**Hope you guys liked this! And yes, I have been listening to Paramore religiously for the past few days. Please leave a review!**


	3. Chapter 3

**Chapter 3.**

_I know I'm an awful person for not updating this sooner...but life happened. Enjoy this chapter! And for you Once Upon A Time fans, I have a story started. It's on my profile if you want to check it out!_

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**Nell.**

A sleeping Eric stirs beside me on the couch. He and I had been perched on the couch for the past few hours, but while I stayed awake, Eric had opted for slouching into the back of the couch, with his arm slung around me. It had been over a day since AJ had been shot, and in those twenty-two hours that the room had been occupied, only two people had remained in the same position for all that time; Lucy, who I had become particularly close to in the past seven months I had known her, and Callen, who, without a doubt, was hopelessly in love with AJ Connors. I had my suspicions over the past while, seeing those two around the Mission together. Most nights, they left at separate times, but on Fridays or days that we had closed a particularly tough case, they would head home together, under the ruse that they were 'going for burgers'. Those suspicions were confirmed when she was shot. On my screen, I could see his whole life falling apart.

* * *

Penny's helmet cam was trained on the masked men in the middle of the warehouse in the seconds after the gunfight. I watched in absolute terror as the woman I had grown to call one of my best friends fell to the ground, a pool of crimson spreading from a massive wound in her chest that had surely created an even bigger wound in her back. The whole Ops centre was silent, save for the shouts and screams that emitted through the speakers. The ever-present Hetty had frozen, with her back against the large block-computer in the middle of Ops. Eric had slumped into his chair, a dumbfounded expression painting his face. As for me, I'm not exactly sure what kind of facial expression I had pulled, but I imagine it was something akin to Callen's grimace that was shown on screen. His eyes were trained in shock on his co-worker's seemingly lifeless body lying on the cold, concrete floor. Three more gunshots sounded, one from Sam's gun, one from Nate's, and the final one from Kensi. All three shots hit the assassins square in the forehead. _Don't mess with angry federal agents. _To be honest, had I been in their position, I definitely would have taken all three of them out, knowing that we already had their co-conspirator in custody. Callen fell to his knees beside AJ, his hand placed strategically on his chest in an attempt to stop the bleeding. In the corner of the screen, Kensi stood shocked beside her partner, who was on the phone to Eric, telling him to call an ambulance. I didn't even register their brief conversation until an ambulance came roaring onto the screen thirty seconds later. Soon after, I saw AJ being wheeled off, Callen jumping into his car and quickly following the ambulance out of the warehouse.

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The rest of that day crawled by at a snails' pace. It was spent going over final reports, processing death and incident reports, checking the clock and calling the hospital constantly. Eric got me through yesterday, holding my hand and telling me that everything was going to be fine. She was going to be fine. She was going to live. In the past day, AJ's condition had remained critical, but stable. The doctors had kept her heavily sedated, and had allowed Callen and Lucy to spend the night at her side, most likely at Hetty's demand.

It was clear how much Callen cared for AJ. The moment we had set foot in the ICU, when he saw her laid out on that bed, with tubes and needles covering every inch of her body, her skin a ghastly white, paler than it usually was, a gash on her cheek from where she had confronted a suspect earlier in the case, her dark hair tangled and falling over her face, tied loosely at the side from where she had plaited it earlier, looking utterly and completely helpless, he had broken. First, a single, silent tear had rolled down his face, followed by two more. He had walked over slowly to her comatose body, his jaw clenched, his eyes glistening. He had slowly taken hold of her slender white hand and caressed it carefully with a feather-like touch of his thumb. He no longer cared who knew about him and AJ, he just stood beside her, broken. He had not stirred from an armchair beside her bed since he had sat down there five minutes after we had entered the room. Sam had returned and stayed with his partner in the hours after, while Nate sat beside Lucy, his face blank and frozen. Lucy, on the other hand, constantly fidgeted in her seat, clearly worried and slightly impatient. Kensi, Deeks, Eric and I had left the other four in the hospital with AJ, while we returned home, Kensi and Deeks heading to Deeks' apartment. Somehow, I don't think Kensi was in the mood for dealing with her clutter or being alone at the moment.

Eric and I had headed to our home, silently undressing and clambering into bed together, without a word, just simply seeking the warmth and comfort of each others' arms. Thinking of how much Callen must be hurting, I suddenly feel conscious of my hand, and the diamond ring resting perfectly on my finger.

* * *

"Nell Jones, will you marry me?" Eric had asked happily, his voice ripe with hope.

A million thoughts flooded my head when he said those four simple words, but the only word that had stood out in my mind, was a simple three-letter word.

"Yes!" I had screamed, leaping up to wrap my arms around Eric's shoulders, planting a kiss on his lips. His forehead rested against mine, my toes just reaching the ground, my only support, Eric's arms wrapped securely around my waist.

It hadn't been an extravagant proposal, but it was perfect. Our twice-weekly walk with our dog, Monster, had turned into the best day of my life. We had stopped underneath the pier, the sound of pattering feet above our heads. He hadn't even gotten down on one knee, he just simply pulled out a small red box, and lifted the lid. When I had yelped out my acceptance, Monster, our Boston Terrier that we had adopted not long after we moved in together, went absolutely mad, just adding to the excitement. It was perfect.

* * *

That was three weeks ago, and we told the team practically the next day. They had been so happy, Kensi had been reduce to a babbling mess planning the wedding, and Deeks attempted to shut her up with a goofy smile still plastered across his face. Callen's eyes had fallen to AJ, who was jumping around with excitement, almost knocking over the large bouquet of flowers that rested on her desk.

* * *

"AJ!" Kensi yelped, attempting to get AJ to tell her about the flowers being sent to her desk everyday for the past week. It was coming up to Valentine's day, and the four men in the bullpen, along with Kensi and myself, had been hassling AJ to give up the name of her secret admirer for days now. She attempted to hide behind the massive bouquet of yellow tulips sitting on her desk. "Please, please, tell us!"

"Yes, AJ. Please, please, tell us!" Deeks said, mocking Kensi's childlike enthusiasm.

"You guys don't need to know!" AJ countered.

"Au contraire, mon soeur." Deeks said, the cliché falling with ease from his lips, with a slight variation due to AJ's femininity. "I believe we do. You see, we need to know so that we can make sure that he won't be a bad influence on you." He stated, his tone similar to that of my big brothers'.

"Trust me, Deeks. He is a _very _good influence." She replied, with a spark of Irish fire in her eyes.

"Is he now?" Callen said, suddenly intrigued in the conversation. "How so?"

The comment obviously lights AJ's spark into a full-blown flame. "I don't think the words that I can use to describe him is appropriate workplace conversation." She said suggestively with a flirtatious wink. Callen's face immediately splits into an ear-to-ear grin, Kensi turning to me with a look that said, "What the hell?"

"Hey guys..." Eric said, approaching the group. "ooh, flowers again AJ?"

"Yes, Eric, flowers again."

"You know what yellow tulips mean, right?" He asks.

"What? No, I don't." She replies with a smile.

"They mean 'hopelessly in love'." He answers shyly. "Don't ask me how I know that."

Callen's face immediately reddened, AJ's eyes flickering to him.

That's when I first had my suspicions.

* * *

At first, I was relatively surprised at myself, not having noticed their clandestine relationship sooner. But when Callen showed the amount of emotion that he did in the hospital I had no doubt that it took all his strength and willpower to not tell us, or anyone, about the two of them. I assumed that Lucy knew, as she was the only one attempting to offer him silent comfort, understanding what he was going through. Lucy eventually fell asleep, on Nate's shoulder, and I was glad that she hadn't seen how AJ had gotten shot, or else she would have been having terrible nightmares. Callen, on the other hand, could function on little to no sleep, being the insomniac he is, so I doubt he'll get some sleep until Hetty tells him to.

The only sound in the silent ICU was Eric, Lucy and Nate's snoring, and the constant, reassuring blip-blip-blip from AJ's heart monitor. My eyes flickered over to the only other conscious form in the room, whose arms were slung over the side of the couch he was resting on, opposite the couch where Eric and I lay. His jaw was still clamped tight, but his hands had relaxed. He had not spoken a word since we got here, the only sound coming from him was an occasional deep sigh. All of us had attempted to get him to go home, get some sleep, eat something, but none had prevailed. Lucy had said next to nothing either, she sat fidgeting in her seat, chewing her nails into oblivion. Nate had been sitting beside her for hours, until Kensi and Deeks came in earlier, telling him to go home and get some sleep, which obviously hadn't come, until twenty minutes ago. He was lulled to sleep by Lucy's steady breathing against his chest. There was obviously something going on between those two, but they weren't dating, because Lucy can never keep her mouth shut on the matter.

The room was kept alive by the constant influx of nurses and doctors coming in to check on her condition. They always said she was stable, but critical. Until now. Dr Yang comes into check on her, "Looks like she's improving. Judging by her condition, she should be responsive in the next few hours, but she might not. Looks like she's getting better." He says with a smile. Lucy's still in a deep sleep, Eric's awake, courtesy of a swift jab in the ribs. Nate's awake as well, trying not to move so that he doesn't wake Lucy. A smile splits across my face as I thank the doctor, promising to tell Lucy when she wakes up. My eyes flit over to Callen, and while his expression remains unchanged, there was an involuntary twitch in his jaw, something that could be related to a smile.

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_Thanks for reading! Any mistakes you see here are mine and mine alone :3 Please leave a review! :3_


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